


Well Worth the Wait

by tessafreakingvirtue



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Olympics RPF
Genre: Baby, F/M, Happy Ending, Pregnancy, Premature Birth, angsty fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 18:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17792228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessafreakingvirtue/pseuds/tessafreakingvirtue
Summary: Is the baby going to be okay? She asks him, and she sees the tears in his eyes, and neither of them can reassure each other and they are on a lifeboat, stranded in the ocean amidst circling sharks.





	Well Worth the Wait

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I've been sitting on for a while and finally decided to finish it and share it with the world.

When her period doesn’t start on the Wednesday she’s tracked it to begin, she knows immediately. It isn’t a guessing game or a mystery. It isn’t even really a surprise. She knows that she’s pregnant. 

She tells Scott right away, seeking his support, and he laughs at her. Actually laughs. 

_You’re not pregnant_ , he tells her. _You’re just paranoid._

He says it because he’s afraid; she can see the fear in his eyes. He says it because he knows that they did this together, and that it’s not just her life that will change forever. He has dreams, too, of course. Now that they’re retired he wants to travel, maybe focus on hockey. Maybe he wants to settle down and start a family with someone who isn’t Tessa. 

Maybe, like her, he’s on a journey to find out who he is without their partnership.

She knows her body, though, and she’s spent the past twenty-two years melding it into a well-oiled machine. She knows every ache, every pain. She recognizes when something is off. And something is definitely off. 

_Do you want to be here for this?_ She asks him once she procures the pregnancy test and reads the instructions. To his credit, he doesn’t hesitate. He nods, even finds a disposable cup for her to urinate in. The stick dips into the warm liquid and they sit in silence for two minutes. 

She realizes, after the timer has gone off, that she can’t find her legs. The idea of getting up and picking up the test, seeing the result, suddenly feels like a grueling task that she should have practiced prior to this moment. 

Seeing her hesitance, Scott stands and moves to the bathroom counter, lifts the plastic stick from the cup and lets his eyes scan the results. 

_You’re pregnant_ , he says, and his voice sounds small and frightened and she’s reminded of when they were children, prepping each other for the crowds and judges and the criticism. Because really, that’s what this is all over again. The two of them facing the world together, preparing to be judged.

 _It’s yours_ , she says, and he already knows that, of course he does, but she needs to make sure. She needs to say it aloud so that she knows she’s not alone in this, even if it feels like she is. There hasn’t been anyone else in nearly a year. 

_Yeah_ , he says. _Okay._

 _What are we going to do?_ She asks, and she knows that he’s as lost as she is, stumbling blindly down this unfamiliar road and trying to find any handholds to help him get his bearings. 

They take a few days to themselves. To think things over, they both say. Tessa doesn’t know about Scott, but all she can think about is the life growing inside her and that waiting and thinking isn’t going to change anything. 

She finally calls and tells him that she’s made her decision. There are no more competitions, no more judges. There’s nothing to stop her from dedicating herself to learning to be a mother. She decides to keep the baby.

 _You can be involved or not_ , she tells him. She wants him to be. She needs him to be. She can’t imagine living a life without him, raising their child without him. 

_I want to be_ , he says, and she thinks she believes him. He’s got the same look of abject terror in his eyes. _I’m going to be there for you._

And he is, for the most part. He makes it to her doctor’s appointments, though sometimes he’s late and sometimes he sits, not speaking, as he watches the nurses move foreign instruments over the taut skin of her belly. 

She knows he is struggling to comprehend this situation, still trying to adjust to the idea that they’ve created the life currently growing within her womb. She allows him to keep his distance from her for some time, but when she feels the baby moving within her, she can’t stay quiet any longer. 

_Does this even affect you?_ She asks one night as they sit on her couch together. He’s been distant, and she wonders if he’s seeing someone else. He’s been there, physically, but emotionally, he’s been a million miles away.

He catches her eye at her question and she notices the flush in his cheeks. 

_Of course it does_ , he says. _You think this isn’t affecting me?_

She doesn’t know, and she tells him so. This appears to make him angry and he pushes himself off the couch, pacing around her living room. She sits, watching, one hand protectively cradling her belly. This isn’t the Scott she knows, and it makes her miss him. She remembers the way they would lay in bed together and kiss, laugh, talk. 

_I don’t know how to be a father_ , he says after a long time. Tessa watches him before taking his hand, guiding his fingers to her belly. She presses them against the firm bump and watches his face as he feels the light flutter of the baby’s movements. 

_I don’t know how to be a mother_ , she replies. _But we’re going to learn together._

She’s thirty-three weeks pregnant when she goes into labor. It’s earlier than her scheduled due date, and it happens in the middle of the night. Scott is awake within seconds, holding her hand, talking her through the contraction. They assume it’s a false alarm, but when the pain increases rather than decreases, Tessa asks him to take her to the hospital. 

Obviously, he does. 

When they pull into the drive of the emergency room, she’s crying and clutching him, her knuckles white with the force of it. She is concerned that her water has broken, but once she’s in the hospital bed and he’s helping her remove her pants and underwear, he sees that the liquid isn’t clear: it’s red. 

He tries to hide the fear in his voice as he says her name, tries to draw her attention to him. 

_Tessa_ , he says, _I want you to look at me. I don’t want you to look anywhere but my face._

And he means well, but she has been his other half for as long as either of them can remember, and she recognizes the tremble in his voice. 

_Something’s wrong_ , she says, and it isn’t a question. She knows the risks of premature labor; she’s done everything she could to ensure that her pregnancy lasted as long as possible. She’s even stopped eating chocolate in her last trimester, concerned that the caffeine would have a negative effect on the baby. The nurses and her mother laughed, shook their heads, but she insisted, saying that she wanted to do everything right. 

She’s done everything right, and yet things are terribly wrong. 

Nurses and doctors cycle through the room. Some of them want to slow her labor, and others want to induce it. She doesn’t get a say. 

_Placenta previa_ , she hears a doctor say, and she wants to know more. She tries to ask questions, but everyone appears concerned and begins to talk over one another, and Scott clutches her hand and kisses her head and tells her that she’s going to be okay. This was one of the many risks she read about as she lounged on her couch, one hand comfortably resting on her belly. There are risk factors that contribute to this condition; smoking, drug use, advanced maternal age. She has none of those risk factors, but she is unlucky enough to be one out of around two-hundred women diagnosed with the condition. Her life has been a series of unfortunate events. 

_Is the baby going to be okay?_ She asks him, and she sees the tears in his eyes, and neither of them can reassure each other and they are on a lifeboat, stranded in the ocean amidst circling sharks.

They rush her into the operating room and prepare her for a cesarean birth. It’s not what she wants and she objects, but they tell her that there’s no longer an option: if they don’t get the baby out, it could mean death for one or both of them.

Throughout all the doctor appointments, Scott was present yet absent, and now as the nurses are attempting to disentangle their fingers so that Tessa can go where he can’t follow, he is nowhere but right here. 

_I’ll see you soon_ , he promises her, and she wonders if he means it. The fingers of pain wrapped around her abdomen make her wonder if she will leave the operating room alive. His hand grasps hers one last time and then she is wheeled away down a long hallway filled with the sounds of other people’s babies, never knowing if she will hear her own child’s cry.

The operating room feels cold and sterile and it reminds her of the surgeries she’s had on her legs, knowing that when she awoke she would need to learn to walk again. That was scary, but this is something else entirely.

She doesn’t feel pain as the C-section begins, only a heavy pressure in her lower abdomen. She listens closely to the discussion of the doctor and nurses and waits to hear her child’s cry. She doesn’t feel them pull the baby from her womb, but she knows when it happens. She feels emptier, lonelier. She senses the difference. 

All of these months she’s waited to see her bawling newborn, the doctor presenting her or him proudly to Tessa while Scott watches on, amazed. But there is no grand presentation and instead of the baby’s cries she hears a hushed murmur behind the white sheet they’ve hung to separate her from the sight of her internal organs. She’s trying to sit up, to see beyond the barrier they’ve erected, but a nurse appears beside her and places a gentle hand on her chest, urging her to lay back down.

Moderately preterm is how the nurse describes the baby, and she doesn’t even bother to say whether the infant is a boy or a girl before she’s telling her that the baby is struggling to breathe and is going to be rushed to the NICU. Tessa cries, begs her to let her at least see her child but the nurse tells her the baby’s skin is tinted blue from lack of oxygen and there’s no time. There’s no time to see her child.

She still hasn’t seen her child by the time she’s wheeled into the recovery room and Scott is allowed in to see her. His eyes are wet with worry and he rushes to her, taking her hands and peppering kisses over her face. 

_Our baby_ , he says, and tears began to stream down her cheeks. He attempts to brush them away with his thumbs but there are far too many and he begins to cry too, though he makes every attempt not to let her see. 

They sit in a silent vigil together, wondering what’s happening and if their baby is still breathing, or has even started breathing. Scott hushes her in a soft voice, strokes her hair as the pain medication sends her into a restless sleep and she dreams of the family they should have been, if only the baby had come a few weeks later. 

She wakes a short while later, to the sound of a woman’s voice. Her eyes flutter open and she sees a nurse, speaking to Scott. Scott, with his tangled mess of hair and his sleep-deprived eyes. Scott is sitting at the edge of his chair, still clutching her hands. She hears bits and pieces of what the woman is saying before she walks away and Scott returns his full attention to her, his face fading in and out of her mind as he says the words: _it’s a boy, and he’s okay. We have a son, T._

It takes another hour before she’s in a wheelchair and they’ve scrubbed their hands well enough to venture into the NICU. Scott pushes her along the row of impossibly tiny babies, pink and shriveled with tubes and monitors connected to limbs so tiny that they don’t look real. 

At the end of the row, an incubator holds a baby with a tiny bracelet adorning his wrist. The bracelet reads simply: Baby Boy Moir. Tessa cries when she sees him, and it’s not because she’s shocked by the breathing machine or the bili lights directed at the baby to help with jaundice. It’s because, even with the tiny mask protecting his eyes from the blue lights, he’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. 

She feels Scott tense beside her and it makes her weep, and then he’s clutching her and they’re staring into the incubator, desperate to see more of this miracle child, to touch him and hold him and give him the life of which they’ve dreamed. 

It’s another twenty-four hours before the bili lights are removed and they’re able to see his tiny body without interference. Tessa’s entire body is sore and Scott is going on his second night without any sleep, but neither of them want to leave him for a moment. They sit and speak to him, read to him, Tessa even singing softly to him despite the fact that she hates the sound of her singing voice and there are other people in the room. When she looks at the baby, it is just as it was for all those years with Scott: there are only the two of them in the entire world. 

They name him Liam, and he is perfect. On his second day in the NICU, Tessa and Scott are able to run their fingers over his paper-thin skin, but Tessa aches to take their child into her arms. She watches him and talks to him about getting bigger and stronger, about how badly they want him and how much they love him and how he has to fight so that he can come home with them. 

Tessa tells him she loves him, that she never knew she wanted anyone as much as she wants him. 

Scott tells him that he’s a fighter like his mom, and that if there’s any kid in the world who can pull through, it’s the child of two Olympic gold medalists. He says it with a smile on his face, but Tessa can see the worry in his eyes. 

On his fourth day in the NICU, Liam is finally lowered into Tessa’s arms and she holds him, entranced by his tiny fingers and toes, the curve of his eyelashes, the veins that run beneath his eyelids. She holds him delicately, as if he is the most precious thing on the planet; because of course, to them, he is.

It goes like this for a week; Tessa and Scott cycling through the NICU, babies coming and going. Some of them go home to their families and are celebrated with smiles and hugs. Some of them just disappear, their spaces in the room remaining dark and lonely until another family is unlucky enough to end up sitting in a rocking chair beside the incubators. 

It seems like it happens all at once, but it’s a slow process. The breathing machine is unhooked; the tubes go away. All that is left is Liam, and he is tiny, but he is there. 

They take him home on a Wednesday, and he is ten days old. He cries more than a full-term baby, his body sometimes shuddering from the overstimulation of being outside of the womb so many weeks in advance. Tessa cries, too, feeling like a failure because he has trouble latching onto her breast, even though she knows this is typical for premature babies. Scott sits beside her in bed or on the couch and holds her through these difficult nights. 

And then, things get easier. Liam sleeps for three, sometimes four hours at a time. His lips easily find Tessa’s nipple and he drinks until he falls asleep, his belly full of milk. He gains weight, his frame going from skeletal to healthy, and he watches them with wide blue eyes.

Parenting is not supposed to be easy, they know, but loving him feels like the easiest thing in the world. Each day as he grows, they fall more in love with him. By the time he is five months old, he is smiling at them and either of them would sacrifice their lives if they could just see that toothless grin one more time. 

Scott proposes one evening after Liam has fallen asleep, and they’re both wearing shirts stained with spit-up and it’s nothing like Tessa had ever planned for this occasion, but all she can do is laugh and cry and kiss Scott and watch as he slips the ring onto her finger. 

Their life has gone from gold medals and ice skates to pacifiers and teddy bears, and neither of them would change a thing.

 _I've loved you since the first time I saw you,_ Scott tells her the night before their wedding, Liam nestled in her arms. _And for a long time I didn't think we were going to be able to figure this out. But you were well worth the wait._


End file.
